Research

Multi-modal Recording Approach

Our lab uses multi-modal recordings to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics that underlie cognition. While participants perform behavioral tasks, we either record scalp electroencephalographic (EEG) activity or collect functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. EEG provides multi-dimensional data with high temporal resolution, allowing us to investigate how cognitive processes unfold on the order of milliseconds. Complementary to the high temporal resolution of EEG, the high spatial resolution of fMRI allows us to investigate how brain regions work together to support cognition. We likewise employ multiple data analytic techniques, including univariate analysis of spectral EEG signals and the fMRI BOLD signal, as well as multivariate methods including pattern classification and representational similarity analysis.

Organizational Processes that Support Memory

A primary focus of the lab is understanding how organizational processes support our ability to remember. Think back to restaurants you’ve been to in the last year. Did you think of them by what type of food they serve? Where they are located? When you visited them? Each of these (and other) forms of organization — semantic, spatial, temporal — facilitate your ability to remember your experiences, as evidenced by extensive behavioral data. Our lab aims to understand how these organizational processes arise and are supported in the brain, both when you initially form or encode your memories and when you attempt to retrieve memories.